Chile was the first major Latin American nation to carry out a
complete neoliberal transformation. Its policies--encouraging
foreign investment, privatizing public sector companies and
services, lowering trade barriers, reducing the size of the state,
and embracing the market as a regulator of both the economy and
society--produced an economic boom that some have hailed as a
"miracle" to be emulated by other Latin American countries. But how
have Chile's millions of workers, whose hard labor and long hours
have made the miracle possible, fared under this program? Through
empirically grounded historical case studies, this volume examines
the human underside of the Chilean economy over the past three
decades, delineating the harsh inequities that persist in spite of
growth, low inflation, and some decrease in poverty and
unemployment.
Implemented in the 1970s at the point of the bayonet and in the
shadow of the torture chamber, the neoliberal policies of Augusto
Pinochet's dictatorship reversed many of the gains in wages,
benefits, and working conditions that Chile's workers had won
during decades of struggle and triggered a severe economic crisis.
Later refined and softened, Pinochet's neoliberal model began,
finally, to promote economic growth in the mid-1980s, and it was
maintained by the center-left governments that followed the
restoration of democracy in 1990. Yet, despite significant
increases in worker productivity, real wages stagnated, the
expected restoration of labor rights faltered, and gaps in income
distribution continued to widen. To shed light on this history and
these ongoing problems, the contributors look at industries long
part of the Chilean economy--including textiles and copper--and
industries that have expanded more recently--including fishing,
forestry, and agriculture. They not only show how neoliberalism has
affected Chile's labor force in general but also how it has damaged
the environment and imposed special burdens on women. Painting a
sobering picture of the two Chiles--one increasingly rich, the
other still mired in poverty--these essays suggest that the Chilean
miracle may not be as miraculous as it seems.
"
"Contributors.
Paul Drake
Volker Frank
Thomas Klubock
Rachel Schurman
Joel Stillerman
Heidi Tinsman
Peter Winn
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